Next time you think things have gotten intolerably bad, and that the world is headed for hell in a handbasket, just think what things might be like if all decision-making were handed to today’s teenagers—the relatively young adults who a decade or two from now, whether you like it or not, will indeed be in the driver’s seat.

Two issues prompted me to worry along those lines.

HALLSVILLE, Texas—No sign marks the entrance to Heartlight Ministries, set off a two-lane highway in East Texas. Its dozen or so log cabin buildings are nestled among tall pine trees, hidden in deep pools of shade. No gate blocks its entrance; no fence warns visitors to stay away. Drivers who turn onto its curved road by accident might mistake it for a bucolic resort.

KATY, Texas—As she walked the halls of Aristoi Classical Academy on a recent October afternoon, headmaster Brenda Davidson greeted most of the students by name. She wound her way around classes meeting on the floor of the Alief Baptist Church gym, the students separated by temporary partitions that blocked the view but not the sound of the next-door lessons. In one history classroom, middle schoolers proudly displayed elaborate models of iconic American buildings: the White House, Monticello, the Washington Monument.

California revamped its social-science education guidelines last week to incorporate lessons on historic LGBT individuals and social movements in the approved curriculum. The decision garnered almost unanimous support at a public meeting and across the state, but some Californians are concerned about its long-term impact on their children.

A group of California educators, school board members, and university professors is pushing back on proposed statewide curriculum revisions they say introduce “historical inaccuracies, censorship, and bias.”

The 11-year-old sauntered confidently to the microphone. Round after round, he knew most of the words without hesitation.

Appetitost.

Taoiseach.

And his winning word: gesellschaft.

My children are 33, 32, 25, and 21, so I thought I had seen the last of their elementary school. But a fourth-grade teacher I know on a first-name basis granted me an hour during her lunch break, inviting along her colleague across the hall, and we talked Common Core over yogurt at miniature desks in M.’s classroom. (WORLD agreed not to use their names in order to protect their jobs.)